Patents; Spectacles are built right into the medicine bottle; new flavors are created for the coffee grinder.

By Sabra Chartrand

Published: August 27, 2001

THE first inevitable sign of aging for many baby boomers is often weakening eyesight, evidenced by the sudden need for reading glasses just to see a restaurant menu. Many people just squint and muddle through, refusing to admit they need those drugstore reading glasses. David Napier thinks that could be dangerous for anyone reading the fine print on medicine bottle, so he's patented a magnifying lens that is build right into product packaging.

Mr. Napier's invention is intended to help people read the tiny type on any package that bears user instructions. The fine print could be on the outside of a packaging box, on a paper insert included with the product, or on the product itself. It could be printed on the side of a prescription or over-the-counter drug bottle, for example.

His patent covers a magnifying lens that is positioned in the cap of the bottle or other package. The lens can be a portion of the cap, or encompass the entire cap surface, Mr. Napier writes in his patent. This would be accomplished by molding the lens or lenses into the cap, although they could be hinged into the cap or inserted into a sliding mechanism and pulled out as necessary.

The lens could also be part of a box top flap, or lid. The flap would be made of plastic and shaped like a lens. A user would tear the flap off the box to magnify any fine print. The resulting lens could be opaque or colored to protect light-sensitive drugs.

Mr. Napier, from Middlebury, Vt., received patent 6,278,545.

The popularity of coffee drinks has created a huge market for specialty coffee beans, fancy brewing machines and coffee bars. The Hain Celestial Group, a food manufacturer, is betting that it isn't just the coffee that attracts people. Two inventors working for the company have patented a method of turning tea or plant leaves, roots, flowers, hops, grains, spices and oils into pellets that can be ground in an ordinary coffee grinder and brewed into hot or cold drinks.

Kerin Franklin, who is from Erie, Co., and Scott Graham, from Lafayette, Co., invented a method of rendering plant ingredients into particles, liquid, paste, powder, or a combination of those. That material is then combined with a binding agent like starch, gelatin, sugar, carrageenan, natural and synthetic gum, wax, water, or alcohol. That substance is in turn formed into pellets. Some pellets may have a flavor or scent ingredient at their core, so a particular taste or aroma is released when the pellet is ground. Flavors, scents and coloring may also be coated on the outside of the pellets.

Dietary supplements like vitamins, minerals, herbal extracts or amino acids might also be added to the pellets. The final product would be the same shape, size and firmness of a coffee bean so that it could be ground in a conventional home coffee grinder.

Thereafter, the ground beans may be cold brewed or hot brewed according to any of the methods known for making coffee or teas, the inventors write in their patent. In this way, individuals are able to enjoy the ritual of grinding ''beans'' for cold or hot brewing beverages other than coffee.

Mr. Franklin and Mr. Graham received patent 6,277,428.

In an effort to get children to eat their breakfast and parents to buy more cereal, food manufacturers have created cereals in different flavors, shapes and sizes. Now the Quaker Oats Company has won a patent for an animated breakfast cereal.

Five inventors have designed a cereal made of a water soluble inner core surrounded by a nonwater-soluble outer layer. When the outer layer is mixed with a liquid like hot water or cold milk, it melts or disintegrates, revealing the edible core.

The revelation ''animates'' the cereal, the inventors write in their patent, meaning that an observable change in the cereal occurs that provides or simulates giving life, making alive or otherwise providing a visually stimulating change, they said.

In one example, the cereal could be generally eggshaped and the dispersion of the outer solid edible mass simulates the hatching of an egg to reveal the inner mass which can be an animal shape (e.g., a dinosaur, for example) or any other desired shape, the inventors added. Naturally the patent points out that the core and outer layer could feature cartoon characters, as well.

The disintegration is engineered to take between 15 seconds and three minutes, because longer times would not generally maintain the interest of the person consuming the food with the additive; a shorter time generally would be too fast for observation by the consumer, the inventors write. The inner core would not disperse for about eight minutes, they said.

The invention could be used for oatmeal or cornflakes, or any food placed in a liquid or sauce.

Paula Manoski, Michelle Salazar, John J. Smith, Robert Boutin, and Thomas Hinkemeyer won patent 6,270,818 for the Quaker Oats Company in Chicago.